


Pear-Shaped

by ConstanceComment



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Fake Character Death, Gen, Heist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2019-11-23 05:10:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18147515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConstanceComment/pseuds/ConstanceComment
Summary: Gil is leaving a heist gone pear-shaped when he hears a very familiar voice. One that's been missing from his life for the last two and a half years. It'd be a lot more welcome if Gil wasn't so enraged.





	Pear-Shaped

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NevillesGran](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NevillesGran/gifts).



> This is an old fic snippet for an AU that I wrote on tumblr almost three years ago to the day. I have since deleted my tumblr, but I'm trying to archive old work. As such, the posting date of this work is artificially set to when the post was first created. Minor typos have since been cleaned out of the work for clarity.

Gil’s leaving the building, singed, and in a hurry when he spots someone talking to the museum’s night manager. The uniform marks him out as security, but it’s not specifically _museum_ security— it looks like an independent contractor’s outfit, but Gil can’t recognize the company.

Normally, Gil would be stealthier than this, but not five minutes ago, he’d run into his sister in an airduct, and two minutes ago one of Theo’s smaller stickybombs went off in his pocket. Apparently Castle has decided to hit the museum, and they’ve hired Zeetha on retainer. Gil hasn’t exactly been having a good night, and clearly, what he needs is the night manager turning to look at Gil over the shoulder of the independent contractor, eyes widening as the officious old man grabs his collegaue, and points directly at Gil.

“That’s the one I saw on the cameras!” Gil hears. “Just before they all went out, I saw his face!”

“Right,” the contractor says, starting to turn. “I’ll take care of it. You go home, Ulrich, I can handle this.”

“Are you sure?” The manager asks. “He’s a criminal! He could be armed.”

“This is why you hired me, Ulrich. He won’t hurt me, I’ll be fine.”

Gil breaks into a sprint at those words, the dark sort of humor in them.

Behind him, he hears footsteps, keeping pace and slowly growing closer as Gil flees the building towards the parking lot, weaving between cars as he bolts for the city and its alleyways.

“Slow down, you idiot,” the contractor hisses. “We’re out of range of the surveillance by now.”

Instead of obliging, Gil hops over the hood of a sedan, sliding over the metal.

“Oh, honestly,” the contractor complains, and Gil doesn’t hear him vault the car, but he does hear the moment he touches down again, feet hitting the ground with a thud as he careens towards Gil. “Wulfenbach!” The contractor shouts. “Would you slow down for two seconds? I know rational thinking is difficult for you, but we can still get out of this with an acceptable profit margin!”

It’s the derision that makes Gil turn, skidding to a halt as the tone winds through his brain. Recognition slowly filters in. He didn’t think he’d hear that voice again, but the disdain is so familiar. He’d never thought he’d actually hear that voice say his name, not his real name, at least. The last time Gil heard that voice, he was being called _Holzfäller._ And the last time Gil checked, that voice’s owner was _dead._

“Well,” Tarvek says, jogging to a halt, “can’t say I thought I’d see _you_ again. About as subtle as I remember, too.”

Gil’s never been on this side of the argument before. Usually, it’s someone else yelling at _him_ because he forgot to tell them he was alive. It’s not exactly a pleasant place to be standing, and not the least because he hasn’t seen Tarvek in two and a half years. The last Gil heard, he’d gone over the side of the ship DuPree had had him cornered on, and been lost at sea. Gil never asked her why she’d kidnapped him; Tarvek might’ve been Valois, but he was useless, and everyone knew better than to try and get ransoms out of _that_ family.

Gil hadn’t gone to the funeral. He hadn’t even been invited. It wasn’t like he and Tarvek were _friends,_ not since they were children. But Gil had still poured a drink out for him when he’d heard, then gotten mad at himself for wasting one of Theo’s cocktails. He might not have _liked_ Tarvek, but things had felt duller, for a while, without a certain pompous jackass bumbling into half of Gil’s crime scenes.

In a second, all that anger rushes back to him, as acid as the wasted drink.

Gil clocks him right in the nose, a solid jab that sounds like it broke something.

“Ow!” Tarvek exclaims, and honestly, he has _no right to sound so offended—_

“I thought you were _dead!”_ Gil yells at him.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Tarvek says, voice nasally as he pinches the bridge of his nose. “But no, I’m here, saving _your_ incompetent ass. That’s a month-long con you’ve just barreled through. Is that any way to thank the man who’s pulling you from the fire?”

“Thank you?!” Gil rages. “You want me to _thank you?_ You faked your own death!”

“And then I rose from the grave again,” Tarvek says, wrenching his nose back into place with a wince and a very unpleasant crunching noise. “Honestly, you of all people have no right to be angry about this. It wasn’t even like I was gone that long–”

“Two and a half years!” Gil fires back. “The longest I ever went off-grid was two months, and that was by accident–”

“Two and a half years?” Tarvek asks, squinting at him. “Wulfenbach, I was only gone for _six months._ Unless,” he says slowly, “you never noticed when I resurfaced.” A grin spreads over his face, marred by the blood still dripping from his nose. “You didn’t, did you?” Tarvek asks him. “I was running the crew so quiet and so deep you didn’t even notice that we’ve been at this nearly two whole years–”

“How was I supposed to know that you weren’t as useless as you’d always been?” Gil asks, anger still humming. “You were basically a mark in Paris; I thought you were _dead.”_

“Why Wulfenbach,” Tarvek drawls, “I didn’t know you _cared.”_

Before Gil can say anything, an unmarked white van screeches around the corner, coming to a complete stop perhaps a foot from where they stand. A paneled door opens, and a blonde head juts out from the passenger window.

“Get in the car!” The woman hisses. “You’re ruining my operation!”

“And you’d be Castle, I presume,” Tarvek says, utterly poised despite his bloodied face and congested voice.

 _“Agatha?”_ Gil manages, and her attention snaps back to him all of a sudden, the laser focus he’d never quite associated from KB’s little sister suddenly turned in force on him.

Gil’s going to _kill_ Zeetha.


End file.
